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Height: 6-2
Weight: 190
Birthday: Sept. 5, 1974
Birthplace: Berlin, VT
Hometown: Salt Lake City, UT

Japan has a double grip on snowboarding gate-runner Thomas O'Brien: 1. He hopes to compete next season at the Winter Games in Nagano. 2. When he's not training or competing, O'Brien - an aspiring architect or landscape architect - might be found tending Japan's famed Bonsai trees.

O'Brien, who competed on the ISF tour before last season, got to Nagano a year ago during his first full campaign on the FIS Grundig World Cup tour. Good but not great results in Japan help motivate him to do better this year...and be back there a year from now as an Olympian.

Comment: "I like the scheduled camps but I also like training to be fun, and to get me outside. I don't train with the sole purpose of getting an aerobic workout. I go to the gym - not willingly but I know I have to do it."

Start-up: An alpine ski racer growing up in Vermont, O'Brien switched to snowboarding after a skier ran into him and broke his left arm in 1989. He started racing right away; "I switched from the ski team to the snowboard team [with the Mt. Mansfield Ski Club."

School: A junior, he's taken off this year from the Univ. of Utah so he could concentrate on his riding but he plans to return when his riding days are over. "I was majoring in sports science but when I go back I think it will be in architecture."

About those Bonsais: While filling one of many odd jobs, he was working at a nursery. "Someone came in looking for these little trees one day, and after helping them find some of the tools for trimming, I became interest and started reading about it."

Other sports: Played forward on his high school soccer team for a couple years and golf in his senior year.

Family: Dad's a retired state engineer in Vermont; Mom's a self-employed clothing designer; two brothers - he lives with Peter, also a Utah student, while younger brother Alex is taking a year off from the Univ. of Vermont.

Books: He enjoys Grisham and Clancy

Favorite Jell-o flavor: Lime

Musical tastes: Played the piano for several years and is learning to play electric guitar.